New LORD OF THE RINGS Series Photo Features a Snow Troll and The Show Doesn't Compete with Peter Jackson's Trilogy
We’ve got a new photo to share with you from Amazon’s upcoming epic fantasy series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. The show is set in the Second Age of Middle Earth, which is thousands of years before the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of The Rings. This is the time of the forging of the rings of power and the rise of Sauron.
The photo offers a first look at Snow Troll, and in an interview with Empire, showrunner Patrick McKay offers some insight on the show explaining that it does not try to compete with Peter Jackson’s trilogy. He explains:
“Anyone approaching Lord Of The Rings on screen would be wrong not to think about how wonderfully right [Jackson] got so much of it. But we’re admirers from afar, that’s it. The Rings Of Power doesn’t try to compete with him.”
Early on in the development, a lot of fans were hearing that The Rings of Power series would try to emulate HBO’s Game of Thrones in some aspects, but that’s not really the case either as they are following Tolkien’s vision, not the vision of any of the other competing properties. McKay went on to say:
“You can psych yourself out in keeping up with the Joneses, but one of the mantras on this was ‘go back to the source material.’ What would Tolkien do? Some of these other competing properties – they play one octave really beautifully. But Tolkien was playing every note on the piano. He had that variety of tones. There’s the whimsy, friendship and humour that Harry Potter is so beloved for – but there’s sophistication, politics, history, mythology and depth, too. So for us, it was about going deeper into what we are, rather than worrying about what other folks are doing.”
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power “brings to screens for the very first time the heroic legends of the fabled Second Age of Middle-earth's history. This epic drama is set thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and will take viewers back to an era in which great powers were forged, kingdoms rose to glory and fell to ruin, unlikely heroes were tested, hope hung by the finest of threads, and the greatest villain that ever flowed from Tolkien's pen threatened to cover all the world in darkness. Beginning in a time of relative peace, the series follows an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared re-emergence of evil to Middle-earth. From the darkest depths of the Misty Mountains, to the majestic forests of the elf-capital of Lindon, to the breathtaking island kingdom of Númenor, to the furthest reaches of the map, these kingdoms and characters will carve out legacies that live on long after they are gone.”
The cast for the series includes Robert Aramayo, Owain Arthur, Nazanin Boniadi, Tom Budge, Morfydd Clark, Ismael Cruz Córdova, Ema Horvath, Markella Kavenagh, Joseph Mawle, Tyroe Muhafidin, Sophia Nomvete, Megan Richards, Dylan Smith, Charlie Vickers, Daniel Weyman, Cynthia Addai-Robinson, Maxim Baldry, Ian Blackburn, Kip Chapman, Anthony Crum, Maxine Cunliffe, Trystan Gravelle, Sir Lenny Henry, Thusitha Jayasundera, Fabian McCallum, Simon Merrells, Geoff Morrell, Peter Mullan, Lloyd Owen, Augustus Prew, Peter Tait, Alex Tarrant, Leon Wadham, Benjamin Walker, and Sara Zwangobani.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is led by showrunners and executive producers J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay. They are joined by executive producers Lindsey Weber, Callum Greene, J.A. Bayona, Belén Atienza, Justin Doble, Jason Cahill, Gennifer Hutchison, Bruce Richmond, and Sharon Tal Yguado, and producers Ron Ames and Christopher Newman. Wayne Che Yip is co-executive producer and directs along with J.A. Bayona and Charlotte Brändström.
The series is set to premiere on September 2, 2022.